Stx you really got me thinking. I would of ASSUMED that any extra “beam” would of counted as a NT point but im sure you are right if you are saying that it just cant be counted. As good as the BC system is there are just too many variables to touch all bases. And, yes, I agree the neatest thing about deer hunting is how every deer is different. Especially WT, and not as much MD and surely not so much on Pronghorn and lots of other species. And Quail dang sure all look alike.
Your Mule Deer scoring comments really got me thinking. When TBGA first started in 1990 they taught me to officially score. I hardly ever scored any MD and never really researched it much in future years. My understanding at that time was that they were ALL scored as 5x5s in the normal configuration for MD. Anything else was NT. I still think that’s true but your comments made me realize there is more discretion allowed than I thought. Question, wouldn’t the discretion allowed on your left side cluster be the same regardless of the opposite side(I would of assumed that). On his right side, I would not of known which tine to use as g4 but I know as a rule of thumb they try to give a buck all they can when there is discretion.
As always, I love all your detailed comments. Im sure there are some out there that don’t care one bit about scoring, and that’s fine, but for some of us it just adds a whole other dimension to the experience. Kind of like quail hunters like dog work or golfers like the scenery or exercise.
Ive got a MD that’s got some of same stuff involved in scoring and I will try to post him if I get a minute.
The "extra beam" not scoring would be solely if it originated from the skull as a 3rd beam. Score sheet does not have a place to enter a 3rd beam. It only has right and left side scoring.
I was trained and certified as a TBGA scored probably 12-13 yrs ago. There will always be something that needs clarification when you get into the non-typical deer that are killed. That is why they use a panel to do the final score on some of those I think. Just to many variables to be covered in a book. Somethings they come across over the years were not thought of when they wrote the scoring guidelines. Even though I have been thru the scoring class there are things I come across that I still have to read in the manual or call someone to ask about it.
On my mule deer I called one of the guys who does the rescore for the TBGA top 5 or so of the final entries in each species catergory. I sent him a couple of pics via text and then called him to let him explain exactly how I should score it. He said the only way the tripod is scored at the scorers discretion is when there is a missing G3 on the opposite side and there is a tripod on the other side. The G2 will almost always be the back tine unless it is under this example. That missing G3 and the 5 pt WT side on the right on the buck is what made the G4 move to the closer tine to the G2. That made the outer tine in the front a NT on that right side. It gained 1.5" of mass alone with that change. My initial score on the buck on his right beam I used the front point as the G4 and the point in-between as the NT. On the left tripod side I used the back tine of the tripod as the G2 and then the middle tine of the tripod as the G3. Front tine in the tripod as the NT. I was using the symmetry of a normal 4x4 or 5x5 mule deer as the basis for my score.
I had another one I ran across once. I scored the buck as a typical 6x6 that had a few NT points also. When I got someone to look at him and rescore it, he even had to stop and question his scoring. The buck had what I called matching short G2s....the guy rescoring him said those are not coming off the top of the beam like the 3's, 4's and 5's did. They came more off the back of the beam at an angle more but they matched perfectly in location and angle. He finally decided that they were closer to the top of the beam than the middle of them and called them both typical. I never even thought they were NT till he stopped and posed the question to me to see what I thought. After he explained why he questioned it I understood it much better.
So many places that lease or do hunts use a score basis for their records. Many never score a deer. Those that do will use those score sheets to gauge over time how they are progressing. We have had to do it on our mule deer lease since we started, it is only for the biologist records though. It is one thing the LO wanted done. Some guys don't care to get a score and others want to know.